Kellett Cares ICM

Here's a great video of our students working in the Philippines with children in the Kellett Cares Learning Centre. I could go on about global awareness etc etc, but the video says it all really!

P4 LOGO Work

Here are some screenshots from P4's recent module using Terrapin LOGO. Please note, the music for this Animoto slideshow was chosen by Mrs Bull!

ICT & School Council Digital Photography Competition

Here's a sneak preview from our recent competition. Many thanks and well done to all those who entered. The results will be announced by the School Council in the next couple of weeks.

2010 Photo Competiton Preview on PhotoPeach

FOBISSEA ICT Conference

This weekend sees the third FOBISSEA primary ICT meeting. I was unable to attend the meeting last year but found the initial meeting to be very useful. I'm very much looking forward to the opportunity to share with others interested in using educational technology.

The last time I attended, my hotel had a great view of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpar. This time round I am just round the corner from this very famous landmark. Any student who can tell me where I will be via email or through blog comments can have a Kellett point - easy!!

photo credit; Flick user daymin

Year 4 Games Based Learning

It used to be that whenever you talked about Games Based Learning you would always have to start with justifying why you were including games in the classroom context. Thankfully, the need for that is less and less and you would actually have a hard time justifying why you are NOT using Games Based Learning in an authentic 21st Century Classroom.

At Kellett, games continue to have a major influence on our work with recent examples in Literacy with Guitar Hero, Samarost and Moshi Monsters. Next term sees a new initiative for us as we seek to build upon the work carried out in Scotland using Nintendo DS consoles. More news on that later.

Year 4 have also had the opportunity to study a simulation game in their ICT lessons based upon preparing for a natural disaster, in this case, a tsunami. These so-called 'serious games' allow users to use traditional game play techniques whilst allowing them to reflect on some aspect or issue. We've only just started this module but a number of parents mentioned the game during our recent parents evening so the link for the game is below. It also has a variety of other disaster scenarios, including a sadly quite topical one on earthquakes.

The site can be found here.

More Glogster!

Two more videos to help with Glogster.

Glogster

Now that PCCW have unfiltered Glogster it means that we are able to access Edu Glogster. We have a school account which allows you to create your own multimedia glogs. If you are in P5 or P6 Mr Dawes can give you an account and password.

Have a look through this video tutorial to give you some ideas. Remember that you already have an account, but you need to get the details first. Have fun!

Experimenting with the Kellett Dragon!

Trying out a different way of adding the Dragon to the internet.

Chinese Studies Using Go Animate

Here's a neat little animation made by staff in our CS team to help students revise daily routines and dates.

GoAnimate.com: Daily Routine by misschen


DomoNation.com: Dates by Miss Chen

Voicethread

Voicethread is one of my favourite applications. Whenever anybody askes me about it I direct them to this video. Unfortunately, due to the strange way in which TeacherTube runs it's site, I haven't found a way of sending the video to non-members, so I've embedded it here instead!

Artist in Residence Work

Examples from our recent Artist in Residence Project.

P6



P5



P4



P3-10



P3-11



P3-12



P2-7



P2-8



P2-9



P1-4



P1-5



P1-6

Christmas iTouch?

I didn't get an iTouch for Christmas as I already had one (did finally get a Livescribe Pen though - hurrah!).

However, I am aware that a number of students received an iTouch from the big man in red. If you've been playing with it already you'll probably agree with me that it's a fantastic piece of kit.

Here's a note for parents though. If you are running filtered or controlled access to the internet via your PC or laptop, your filter software will not apply to the internet access via the iTouch. In other words, net access via the iTouch is unfiltered.

Now, in an ideal world that would not be a problem. There would be little inappropriate content on the web and all our students would be perfectly capable of using the iTouch in a responsible manner. Sometimes though, that's not always the case and it's perfectly understandable that parents feel the need to take precautions.

So, what can you do?

Well, the iTouch itself has settings which can disable various functions, such as the web browser Safari and the Youtube App as well as access to the App Store itself. Disabling these is an option, but if you want to go down this route then you probably should have purchased a standard iPod rather than the iTouch!

If you want to disable these functions , click Settings on the main screen, choose General, scroll down to Restrictions, Enable Restrictions. You then need to create a restriction PIN (which you should write down somewhere safe so you can always remember it!). You can then choose which services you wish to disable (all the fun ones!!).

If you need any further information on this, click here.

You might also consider a third party piece of software that allows you to monitor and control net usage on the iTouch from your own computer. There are a variety of paid solutions available, the most popular seemingly being;

Mobicip

iNet Safety Bubble

Safe Eyes

If you use any of these applications please let us know how you get on.

At Kellett we have begun to experiment with the use of iTouch in the classroom. We have a small pack of six so far. P1 children have been using them to work on their phonics and later this week Miss Chen will be looking at how to use an app called Finger Lite to teach Chinese Studies in the secondary school.

Running to Keep Up

Having been involved in educational ICT for over ten years I'm painfully aware of how difficult it can be to keep up with changes in technology and allow our students and teachers the opportunity to enhance their learning using the most appropriate tools. The shift required by everybody involved is enormous, and by everybody I mean students, teachers, parents, the whole community.

My New Year's Resolution is to keep going! To try to help us keep up and to continue to encourage innovation and creativity. Our recent purchase of a small pack of iTouch devices is just the beginning of what I hope will be an inspirational year for our students.

Maybe the following is just around the corner;



Thanks to Bill Boyd for this.

Farewell Mrs Pattle!

Imagining ICT running smoothly at Kellett without Mrs Pattle is impossible! However, that's just what we are going to have to do when we return to school after Christmas. Friday saw Mrs Pattle's last day at Kellett, indeed her last day in Hong Kong as she left that evening to return to her native New Zealand along with Mr Pattle who recently secured a position at a university there.

Pam has been at Kellett for over six years, intially as an ESA but then as ICT Manager and for the last term as Database Manager, although she was still very much involved in the day-to-day running of ICT, providing just-in-time support for students and teachers alike.

Pam's contribution to the development of Kellett's ICT has been immeasurable; she provided a link to the work of Jessica Brown and had a detailed understanding of the legacy of Kellett ICT and knew everything about why and how we were where we are. It's essential that we are able to build upon her work to ensure we continue to make the right decisions about our future paths. Having lost that understanding of past progression that is going to be very difficult, but I'm positive we can rise to the challenge.

One of Pam's great assets is that she was always able to look at things from a variety of viewpoints; system and hardware management, educational and pedagogical perspectives and carried out her duties with a friendly and helpful manner. Staff always spoke very highly of her and her departure will be a huge loss to our support structure.

I spent three years and a term working with Pam and it's no exaggeration to say that I wouldn't have been able to do my job without her. Her support was always invaluable and when the next history of Kellett is written it will need a serious amount of text dedicated to her!!

So, it's with a huge amount of sadness, but also best wishes for the future that we say farwell to Mrs Pattle. Good luck!!

Alphabet Thinkers Keys

Here's a great little video by our P2 students using the Alphabet Thinkers Key to organise their research on Neil Armstrong as part of their study on Famous People.

An A-Z of Neil Armstrong